Yao Number at getting to top 10 all time

Will any active bigs crack top 10 greatest centers list?By John Hollinger
ESPN Insider
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Earlier this week, the gang here at ESPN.com took a poll on the greatest centers of all time. That look back in history was an interesting exercise, and one that I've received a ton of e-mails about (If you're wondering about my rankings, I've tackled that under separate cover today in my blog).

But perhaps an even more interesting discussion is to look ahead and see how our top 10 list in 2007 might appear entirely different 20 years from now, depending on the fate of several young big men who currently are working their way up the NBA food chain.

This is especially true since the back end of the list gets a bit soft. While the top seven or eight spots are manned by all-time greats, our vote splintered greatly once we got down to the bottom three or four names. In fact, a whopping 21 different players received votes -- and of those, 12 had their votes come entirely as sixth place or lower.

That suggests there's an opening for some of today's big men to claim a spot at the back end of the top 10. I should point out that it's not particularly likely that any of them will break through into such an esteemed club; all of the players I mention below will have to show significant development and sustain it for several years to earn a mention.

However, since we've spent a lot of time over the past few years bemoaning the decline of the center, I thought it might be useful to point out just how many talented young big men we have in the game right now, and how there's at least a sliver of a chance that a couple of them could go down in history.

So without further ado, here's my list of the 10 active big men most likely to break into the all-time top 10 centers club if we revisited the subject it two decades from now:




10. LaMarcus Aldridge, Trail Blazers
This would require Aldridge to achieve the absolute ceiling on his potential, and for that ceiling to be higher than most observers suspect. Nonetheless, if we're making a list of centers who could one day crack the top 10 list, the long-limbed rookie belongs on it.

The 21-year-old Texan has impressive shooting range for his size, an impossible-to-block release, and a knack for shot-blocking. All that means he could be a devastating interior player if and when he adds some meat on his bones.



9. Jermaine O'Neal, Pacers
Again, a guy who probably isn't going to crack the list, but we at least need to acknowledge the possibility. O'Neal has been in the league for a decade and is still just 28, which means he might put up some truly impressive career totals. To accomplish that he'll have to stay healthy, however, which has been a real problem the past few seasons.

Additionally, he's not going to crack the list of all timers unless he puts together an MVP-caliber year and takes home a championship ring. Not anything we'd bet on, obviously, but stranger things have happened.



8. Darko Milicic, Magic
If somebody told you that Darko would be regarded as an all-time top 10 center by the end of his career, would you be in shock? OK, you absolutely would be. But would you find it utterly implausible? No, you wouldn't.

You would just assume that he got religion at some point, stopped moping up and down the court when things weren't going his way, and used his considerable skills to help redefine the position. Keeping in mind that he's still only 21 years old, I would argue there is at least a sliver of a percentage that this might happen. He'll probably keep frustrating us, but only a rare few people even have the potential to become an all-time caliber player, and he's one of them.



7. Chris Bosh, Raptors
Bosh is a two-time All-Star who won't turn 23 for another two weeks, and his team is a rising force in the Eastern Conference. So far, so good. The problem comes with the "center" part. At 6-10, 230, Bosh is much more of a power forward, and his lack of muscle forced Toronto to trade for Rasho Nesterovic so Bosh wouldn't get killed in the middle.

So why is he on this list? Because we don't know what to expect down the road. Maybe Bosh will tack on 20 pounds of muscle and move back to the middle, or maybe the game will keep evolving in such a way that a player of his size can play center without risk of bodily harm. Either is possible but neither is likely; at any rate, he'd also have to keep producing like this for another decade and bring a championship banner up north.



6. Andrew Bynum, Lakers
Like Milicic, Bynum is somebody you have to mention in a discussion like this because he's so young and has shown so much skill. And unlike Milicic, he's already come a long way since entering the league. Nineteen-year-old 7-footers aren't supposed to be able to pass the way Bynum does, and at a solid 285 pounds he is going to be tough to root out of the post.

If Bynum can continue to develop his scoring skills on the block, improve his conditioning and add a nasty streak, it's hard to know what his upside might be. That alone qualifies him for the list, and helps explain why the Lakers were so reluctant to part with him to get Jason Kidd.

5. Esteban Batista, Hawks
No, not really. Just seeing if you're paying attention. Let's move on.



5. Amare Stoudemire, Suns
Nobody would have put him on this list at the start of the season, but Stoudemire's dramatic recovery from last season's knee problems has him poised to rank among the game's greatest big men. Few can match his combination of size and quickness, and he's one of the best finishers in basketball.

At just 24, the two-time All-Star still has room to grow, such as developing a jumper. Stoudemire will need to hone his defensive skills and keep dialing up the scoring to rank as an all timer, but it seems a lot more plausible today than it did a year ago.



4. Tim Duncan, Spurs
Duncan's problem doesn't deal with skill as much as position. He's obviously one of the best players in history, but we've been considering him a power forward for the bulk of his career.

That made all kinds of sense as along as he was playing alongside David Robinson and Rasho Nesterovic. Of late, however, he's played virtually all his minutes at center, and since he's a 7-footer in a game that's increasingly shifting small I'd expect that to continue.

Since Duncan is 30 and seems capable of playing pretty much forever, it's very possible that he could end up thought of as more of a center than a power forward when his career is done. And if he can throw in a few more high-level performances from that position, it's entirely possible that history will regard him as a great center at least as much as it does as a great power forward.



3. Greg Oden, THE Ohio State University
We don't know a lot of things about Oden, both because he has yet to play an NBA game and because he's played his lone college season while nursing a broken right wrist back to health. However, what we do know is that he's the most hyped player to come out of high school since LeBron James, and that he's a virtual shoo-in to be one of the top two picks in this June's NBA draft should he choose to enter it.

Oden's rep right now is as a defensive center whose offensive game isn't as developed. That's interesting because we thought the same thing about the current No. 10 on the list, Patrick Ewing, when he came out of college.



2. Dwight Howard, Magic
Howard has to be considered a good possibility to crack the list eventually, especially given the fact he got one 10th-place vote in this round of voting. At the tender age of 21 he's already among the best rebounders in basketball, and despite a raw offensive game he's averaging a point every two minutes while shooting 60 percent from the floor.

To crack the list, Howard will have to keep developing offensively, especially with his still very raw low-post game -- averging in the high teens won't cut the mustard in this crowd. Of course he'll have to find his way to a title or two. Nobody would be terribly surprised if either of those events happened, which is why he has a decent chance of eventually cracking the list.



1. Yao Ming, Rockets
If I had to bet on one active player to eventually crack the all-time top 10 centers list, it's this guy. Yao has established himself as the league's most dominant post player, ranking third only to Dwyane Wade and Dirk Nowitzki in PER this season. He's a five-time All-Star whose team seems poised to contend for at least the next few years and, at 26, time still is mostly on his side.

The big threat at this point is injuries -- Yao missed 25 games last season and another 32 this year, and one wonders if the pounding his 7-6 frame delivers on the lower extremities is too much for them to take. But if the Chinese giant can stay on the court, one would think he has a 5-to-10 year window where he will be far and away the game's most dominant post scorer. As a result, he has a great chance to displace Ewing eventually from the end of the list.

 

Whoops I meant to type Yao is Number 1 with the potential to get to top 10 all time according espn insider

 

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